The Luftwaffe had attacked British shipping from the beginning of the war. In the first few days of July 1940 there were sharp encounters over the English Channel and North Sea as British coastal convoys came under increasingly heavy attack. This led to the biggest and most sustained action yet on 10 July and it is this day which the British later designated as the start of the Battle of Britain.

By selecting shipping in the Channel, the Luftwaffe hoped to stretch Fighter Command's resources by forcing the British to commit valuable fighter aircraft to close escort of this important economic traffic. Some light raids were also made on south coast ports.

However, the Germans did not succeed in wearing down the defences. They had not planned their attacks to make the most of Fighter Command's weak spots as they did not appreciate the roles played by radar and the control system which orchestrated the defending squadrons. In fact the opposite happened as experience of the battle allowed technical improvements to be made to the radar stations and those directing the fighters to hone their skills in order to ensure that squadrons were airborne more quickly and deployed more economically than before.

The Germans' probing attacks had given Fighter Command practice in responding to a number of threats simultaneously and convinced Air Vice Marshal Park, commanding 11 Group, to deploy his fighters in small formations in case some attacks were feints or might be followed by successive waves of aircraft. Park's policy conserved his squadrons, but often meant they joined battle on greatly inferior terms.

The next phase - Attacks on Forward Fighter Airfields and Radar Stations 12-18 August